Libyan experts will visit Jordan soon under an agreement between the two countries to resume technical studies on a planned water conveyance project for the Jordanian capital, officials said Wednesday.
The accord was reached Tuesday between Jordan and Libya at the end of a four-day visit to the North African country by Jordanian Water Minister Hatem Halawani, they said.
"The agreement calls for the resumption of the technical studies for the Disi project, including everything concerning the pipelines which will be used to carry water to Amman," a ministry spokesman told AFP.
"This is a very important step because of the water situation in Jordan," which has been suffering from shortages and a severe drought for the past three years, he added.
Halawani returned home late Tuesday and told the official Petra news agency that Libya was committed to help Jordan implement the $590-million project to provide parched Amman with much needed water.
The project is to pump water from the Disi aquifer in southern Jordan to Amman, more than 300 kilometers (185 miles) to the north, providing it with 100 million cubic meters (3.5 billion cubic feet) annually.
Libya, which successfully managed to pump water from its southern desert to irrigate the arid north in the 1990s, last year sent a technical team to Jordan to study the scheme.
Discussions with Libya have been long and strenuous and in March last year the then water minister Kamel Mahadin said Tripoli had agreed to provide 70 percent of the financement of the project. – (AFP)
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